{"id":4285582,"url":"https://alion.io/job/csc-generation-lead-qa-engineer","title":"Lead QA Engineer","company":{"id":8524,"name":"CSC Generation","domain":"cscgeneration.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/csc-generation","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Lever","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":81,"open_postings":111,"ghost_share":0.009,"stale_share":0.532,"repost_share":0.009,"time_to_fill_p50_days":69,"computed_at":"2026-11-12T10:38:37Z"}},"role":"QA","role_family":"QA","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"posting_text","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"explicit","locations":["Costa Rica"],"countries":["CR"],"hiring_countries":["CR"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":{"min":115000,"max":145000,"currency":"CAD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":101662},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":7,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Agile","optional":false},{"name":"Appium","optional":false},{"name":"BrowserStack","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Cypress","optional":false},{"name":"Gatling","optional":false},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":false},{"name":"Jira","optional":false},{"name":"JMeter","optional":false},{"name":"PassKit","optional":false},{"name":"Playwright","optional":false},{"name":"Postman","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Selenium","optional":false},{"name":"Shift-Left Security","optional":false},{"name":"TestRail","optional":false},{"name":"ArgoCD","optional":true},{"name":"GCP","optional":true},{"name":"Grafana","optional":true},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2025-11-26T21:27:07Z","employer_posted_date":"2025-11-26","last_verified_at":"2026-11-13T21:40:59Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":352,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":352},"description":"Adventure is Our Culture. Join a team that celebrates a lifestyle as bold as the terrain we love. At Backcountry, we are rooted in adventure, recognition, and wellbeing - on and off the mountain. We spotlight employee stories, celebrate milestones, and offer exclusive outdoor perks. Whether you are at HQ, in a retail store, or remote, you will be part of a team that thrives on energy, exploration, and connection.\nReports to: Director of Engineering\nLocation: Costa Rica (remote)\nAbout the Role\nAs ourLead QA Engineer, you will own QA strategy and execution across Backcountry’s digital properties across web, API, and mobile with an AI-first approach.\nThis is a high-ownership role built for someone who wants to lead with craft: raising automation coverage, strengthening release confidence, and influencing how quality is woven into every stage of the development lifecycle. In your first six months, you’ll establish Playwright as the primary automation framework and define repeatable release validation standards that support our weekly deployment cadence.\nBy month twelve, the expectation is measurable improvement in regression stability, defect trends, and test coverage with targeted initiatives like Apple Pay automation moving from backlog to production.\nWhat You’ll Do\nLead QA Strategy & Execution\nOwn the end-to-end testing lifecycle across Backcountry’s web, API, and mobile platforms.\nDefine scalable QA frameworks, automation strategies, and release validation standards that support a weekly deployment cadence.\nDrive shift-left practices, integrating quality checks early in the SDLC to reduce downstream defect costs.\nMaintain and improve functional, regression, and performance/load testing coverage using tools like Playwright, Postman, and JMeter.\nBuild & Mentor a High-Performing Team\nDevelop, coach, and grow QA engineers, fostering a culture of quality ownership and continuous improvement.\nInfluence quality practices across engineering teams, even without direct authority over every contributor.\nServe as the internal expert and advocate for QA best practices, helping the broader engineering org level up.\nDrive AI/Automation & CI/CD Excellence\nCreate re-usable agents that reduce overhead for your team.\nChampion Playwright as the primary automation framework and expand coverage across web and API surfaces.\nIntegrate automation into CI/CD pipelines and support release validation processes, including occasional after-hours deployments.\nLead targeted automation initiatives including Apple Pay automation and AI-assisted testing approaches.\nEvaluate and adopt modern QA tooling (BrowserStack, Appium, Gatling) where they improve coverage or efficiency.\nCollaborate Cross-Functionally\nPartner with product managers, developers, and DevOps to embed QA into Agile delivery workflows.\nWork within Jira and TestRail for defect management and test case organization.\nAlign stakeholders on quality signals and communicate release readiness with clarity.\nMonitor & Optimize Quality Metrics\nDefine and track KPIs for product quality, defect density, test coverage, and release reliability.\nEstablish baseline performance and load testing checks integrated into the standard delivery workflow.\nSurface quality trends proactively and drive resolution before they become release blockers.\nRequired Qualifications\n7+ years of experience in Quality Assurance and Testing, with at least 2+ years in a lead or senior individual contributor capacity.\nProven, hands-on experience with Playwright for web and API E2E automation.\nStrong automation fundamentals across Cypress, Selenium, or comparable frameworks; ability to build and maintain scalable test suites.\nWorking proficiency in Python, JavaScript, or Java; operate effectively in test frameworks and validate or correct AI-generated code.\nSolid experience with functional, regression, and performance/load testing (Postman, JMeter, or equivalent).\nDemonstrated SDLC and Agile experience with strong defect lifecycle management using Jira and TestRail.\nAbility to operate independently under a steady release cadence and manage competing priorities without close supervision.\nPreferred Qualifications\nE-commerce QA automation experience, particularly in environments shipping frequently with CI/CD integration.\nFamiliarity with BrowserStack, Appium, Gatling, or Argo CD.\nExperience with observability tooling like Grafana or GCP-based infrastructure.\nHands-on experience with Apple Pay automation or similar payment flow testing.\nPractical, responsible use of AI-assisted testing tools - including the ability to validate and correct AI-generated test code.\nStrong communication and stakeholder alignment skills, including the ability to influence without authority.\nWhy Join Backcountry\nThe people who do best here are builders. They take ownership, move fast, and want to see the direct impact of their work.\nAdventure is Our Culture: We celebrate the lifestyle our products enable. Milestone moments, employee stories, and exclusive outdoor perks are part of how we work.\nAI-First Skill Building: Get hands-on with advanced AI and automation tooling. You'll build a modern QA stack that puts you ahead in any engineering environment.\nAccelerated Ownership: High performers are quickly trusted with greater scope, new challenges, and leadership opportunities.\nCompetitive Benefits: We offer an attractive benefits package including primarily remote work, private medical and life insurance, additional paid time off, monthly allowances and reimbursements, employee discounts, and opportunities for professional growth.\nInterview Process\nRecruiter Intro: 30-minute video call to discuss your background, experience, and the role.\nHiring Manager Screen: A fit and mutual interest conversation to explore alignment on the role, team, and working style.\nTechnical & Behavioral Interviews: Two separate interviews: one with a senior engineer focused on your automation depth and technical approach, and one with a product stakeholder focused on cross-functional collaboration and quality advocacy.\nLeadership Interview: A conversation focused on how you lead, develop teams, and drive quality culture.\n Final Interview (On-Site): An in-person meeting with someone on the team in Costa Rica.\n Reference Checks: We will connect with a few professional references to round out our understanding of your work and impact.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6388,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":7,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Life insurance"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"Costa Rica","iso":"CR","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["E-commerce Platforms","Retail & Shop Systems"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-13T21:40:59Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":12,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.42,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":352,"expected_fill_days":69,"reasons":["conf:0","win:tail","crowd:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-11-13T22:18:50Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":101662,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/csc-generation-lead-qa-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/csc-generation-lead-qa-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-13T22:18:50Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":44525,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-14T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":8524},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=8524"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fcsc-generation-lead-qa-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"free","price":{"credits":0,"usd":0},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fcsc-generation-lead-qa-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fcsc-generation-lead-qa-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/csc-generation-lead-qa-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fcsc-generation-lead-qa-engineer"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":4285582}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"cscgeneration.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":4285582},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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